Self-Loops in the Vertex Lists. How can I look at @mentions?

I want to analyse journalists on Twitter and whom they engage with using @mentions and
@replies. I have a user network of journalists. When I import the Twitter data with Node XL using the user network feature, I get either

self-loops for the tweets without mentions/replies for the vertices

A vertex of the journalist and another journalist, but only if that journalist was in the user network list I provided.

However, I would like to analyse all the outbound @mentions and @replies and ideally also include inbound @mentions and
@replies. The tweets are being collected and I can see that the journalists are e.g. @mentioning politicians. But I cannot seem to be able to get it into the vertex column. Could you please advise?